Earlier on, I discussed technology and how it’s turned “nice to have” into “unless you have it, the thing won’t work”, such as the episode where Samsung fridges bricked because of a crappy “update”.
[brief 250,000-word rant deleted]
Now we’re always talking about appliances like fridges that last for yonks without breaking down, but I am reminded of one old stalwart that I used for (rough guess) about ten years before I got talked into something more “advanced” (to my everlasting regret).
Well, it wasn’t a fairy tale.
Take a bow, the venerable HP500 Deskjet:
I have no idea how many thousands of pages I printed using this old dot-matrix warhorse — remember, back then we couldn’t send any document of size through Teh Emailz, so we had to print stuff out and mail it (or hand-carry it) to the intended recipient’s office.
My memory is hazy after all these years — was it 2001 when I finally stopped using it? I know it was post Y2K, because I was assured that it would not be affected by Teh Y2K Disaster!!! and carried on relying on it until the panic passed). But honestly, I could probably count the number of printer jams on the fingers of two hands, no more.
Yeah, the quality wasn’t up to much. But let’s face it: how many times do you actually need photographic quality on your printer’s output anyway? (In my case, it would be “hardly ever”.)
I’m telling you, right now I would be perfectly content with that HP500, even though it has no BlooToof™ connection and I’d have to plug it into my laptop every time I wanted to print something… which would be about twice a month, tops.
Of course, it would need a different cable connector because there’s no room for a 36-pin plug on the Lenovo, but I’m sure some geek could slap one together for me in about half an hour. And I’m not sure that HP (or anyone else) even makes the ink cartridges anymore, either.
Whenever I think about the HP500, by the way, I’m reminded of this example of simple, rugged utility:
1969 VW Beetle
I’d probably be quite contented with this old thing too, even though like the HP500 it doesn’t have all the bells and whistles of Cursed Modernity™ either. OMG!!! No electric windows, no automatic transmission, no ECM, no power steering, no anti-lock brakes, no remote disabling, no spy system (ADR), no “lane assist” and no “parking camera” (okay, I wouldn’t mind the last one too much, but it would be a simple aftermarket addition).
What it does come with: simple and inexpensive maintenance, low fuel consumption and a full-size spare tire.
Translate the above into printer-speak: hardly any maintenance, low ink usage, plentiful and cheap cartridge supply and an as-needed cable plug. VW Beetle, meet HP500 Deskjet printer.
Go on, mock me I dare you.
The HP500 was an inkjet, an early one. Great printer indeed, first printer I had that didn’t rattle, click, and clack like an old typewriter.
Stopped using mine when they stopped making ink cartridges for it, years after it had gone out of production.
How different from modern day HP who stop making the cartridges before they stop selling the printers almost.
Inkjets have one issue that plagues people like me who only print on occasion – the heads dry up after a couple weeks with no use. I got decent at cleaning them with isopropyl alcohol and cotton swabs.
For your consideration, I present… The HP LaserJet Series II. That was a workhorse of a printer, and the favorite of secretaries worldwide. Maintenance was simple. Clean out the dust with compressed air, replace the rubber rollers that had gotten hard, and it was good to go again.
For myself, I have a Samsung (yes, really) M2070FW laser printer that I got in 2014. Samsung sold their printer business to HP a few years later, but my printer still runs at 12 years old. It is black only, single side, but I can print from my phone, make copies and send faxes (although I haven’t had a landline to connect it to in years). Oh, and it’s happy with the generic cartridges, so I have a few stashed away.
The only printer that worked 100% was the old ribbon style dot matrix types. The modern HP printers suck shit – always offline and can never connect. Fuck them. My Cannon seems to work fairly well, although I maybe print one document a month, so I actually don’t really need it – except when I do. Also, my last HP wanted to do the subscription thing and have a monthly charge – fuck that with a rusty chainsaw.
I bought the HP 4200 series printer for the house 30 years ago. When the daughter went off to college I got her a HP 4240 printer that se used for 10 years and it somehow ended up back here. The son took our printer for 2 years before he returned it as new roommate had a much nicer printer. I have on old laptop running Linux as a print server. It works and they still make the print cartridge.
I had a 62 Beetle in 77. At 45 mph I hit a pothole that broke the steering. It swerved into the ditch and went end over end. I parted it out over 4 months and pocketed twice what I paid for it.
Kim,
For years in the workplace I had an HP laserjet 4. That thing was a beast. I kept track of when feed rollers and the fuser bar were replaced, etc. I had one where the page count was north of 3,000,000. Wasn’t fast, only printed black-and-white, but it was damned near indestructible. It would print anything from 15# thin paper to 90# card stock .. without adjustment of any kind.
My 4-wheel choice .. 1968 Dodge Dart with the 225 slant 6. If the 225 was not avail, I’d take the 318 V8.
Oh, my simple rifle .. 1945-built Mosin Nagant M44 Carbine. It might fail if run over by a T-55 tank.
Ima
Happened to work at HP when the 1 Millionth LJ4 was made. Had a coffee mug celebrating the event. Then fuck all, because the things were so damn bulletproof (as stated) people were content with them, and weren’t buying the LJ5 or Mopier or whatever…..because who the fuck cares if I get 50 ppm vs 65 ppm. There was a ton of distress at HP over that, a ton, and led to a lot of stupid decisions…..cumulating in the Carly Fiorina years, for which they never really recovered.
At my current job I finally pulled the last LJ4 about 4 years ago….because the NIC went bad in it finally. As far as a direct connect printer, it still worked (good luck finding a lpt1 computer anymore tho).
HP like General Motors with their 3800 series engine, managed to correct the build flaw of quality & long life, by making shit that falls apart about 2 years in.
Mock you? Why?
Back in the “before time” (prior to 1970,) I was raised on VW’s, from Beetles to Squarebacks to Type 2 Busses to 6-pack Kombi’s with the fold-down sides. I learned to drive with the VW 4-speed. The first automatic transmission I ever drove was an ambulance when I enlisted in the Air Force.
Mock you? VWs might not win races, but they would keep going long after other cars would leave you standing by the side of the road, and when they finally did need fixing, the jobs were usually pretty easy to accomplish without a degree in engineering.
I’d kill to have my sister’s ’58 Bug back again.
I used to have one of those printers back in the day. That was before they’d only put a few drops of ink in the cartridges. I’d agree with a commenter above about Laserjet 4s. Built to last. I myself have had great luck with Brother laserjets. Simple, cheap to own.
Gotta love Beetles. Simple as a butter churn. That said, my parents had one when I was a kid. It wouldn’t start days when it was raining. The old man traded it in on a Toyota (back in 1972). That car was indestructible. Not too long ago I saw a youtube where these dudes were rebuilding a beetle – you can still get nearly all the engine parts. They explained the starting problem while wet. I think it was something stupid like the wires or distributor cap.
My only complaint about those old rear engine VWs is that the shifter feels like a spoon in a bowl of oatmeal. Not a lot of feedback on where the gears are.
After about 15 years with a Laserjet III, which finally failed needing a new drum, I bought an HP1320 in 2004. A little over a foot square and many many pounds lighter. Still strong. 25872 pages as of today. Probably on the 8th or 9th toner cartridge. Perfectly happy to sit for a month unused. B+W only: one job, does it well.
The all-singing and dancing MFC3055 sits in the basement gathering dust since the day I cancelled the fax line. Does 3 things but none of them well.
For a scanner, a Brother ADS-1000W. Small, fast portable duplex colour scanner. One job, does it well. Scanned over 2,500 pages in one day once, when I was faced with a document dump of disclosure. Scanned it. Examined it later.
As to cars: my first car was a Triumph TR-6 . Took far too much effort to keep it from ‘decling’. I replaced it with a Honda Civic which ran 10 years with nothing more than oil changes. One job, did it well.
Oops. Declining.
A somewhat humorous OT: Back in ought-ought, I did a pass design for Bryan Adams that featured a photo of him and two band mates wearing white toques and what I imagine were typical hoser expressions. The legend being White Toque, Eh? Every time I encounter references to the panic, that image pops up in my mind.
Regarding the ’69 VW Beetle: Fuck Ralph Nader. That is all.
As I tell people, I am not a luddite. I just prefer things that are simple and work first time, every time.
I also had a HP Laserjet 5 something. It was a bit more than one cubic foot, and all it did was print in black and White. After delaying it for years, I finally updated my operating system to, I don’t know, Windows 95 or whatever came after that when they still named the releases after the year like cars. This was AFTER the Y2K non-event (I only call it that because it wasn’t an Isaac Asimov, Nightfall style collapse, btw. I have a friend who worked diligently during the late 90’s to make sure of that) to my horror, it didn’t work anymore. No more drivers to work with the new OS. I gave it to a church, figuring they might still run the correct OS to make it usable. In the years I had it, it used only one printer cartridge. I had to buy something else, so I got a Brother; brother, it goes through the half-sized toner cartridges like a teenage boy at the dinner table. I later bought an HP OfficeJetPro which printed B&W, Color, could scan to anything, do faxes, copy, and whatnot.
My car was similar. I had an ’83 Jetta, and if you opened the hood, you could see that it had four cylinders because the four spark plug wires were right there, visible for anyone to see. I could do the plugs, the brakes, I even installed new exhaust manifold gaskets myself, and muffler and exhaust parts as needed. The beauty of that system was that any Year’s 4 cylinder engine/transmission parts had a near certainty of working on any other year. Even Audi parts. VW, in its enormous marketing wisdom decided that twenty years was more than enough for anyone to enjoy their engineering and manufacturing skill, so they stopped supporting them, year by year. I had a Passat but under the hood they even put a plastic cover between the banks of the six cylinder engine that looked like something Mattel put on their Hot Wheel cars to look like an engine. twenty years on that one, but once after only eight years of ownership, the Mom-and-Pop I took my car to had to look all over North America for the part and finally found it in Montreal.
As I said, I am not a luddite. Someone called me that when, at a Sierra Club campout (shhh, I’m a mole), I had an old Coleman 220 two mantle lantern and a Svea 123 stove. If it works and does what I want when I want it, I’m happy.
Mock you? How about move over so I can sit down too.
Came the day (late 90’s) that I moved my FFL bidness into my garage, and became one of those detestable, loathsome “kitchen table” gun dealers. One of my better decisions. For one thing, got my license location out of the city and into the county, but I digress. Space being at a premium, I bought a cute little printer (can’t now recall what brand) that fit nicely up on a shelf. It lasted about 100 prints before its nylon gears stripped.
My saving grace was Sue, then 50-ish with salt and pepper hair. She was the sole proprietor of Chico Laser Savers. Sharp as a tack, and loved to yak. I used to describe her shop as having had everything in it heaped in a pile, then a hand grenade set off underneath. OK, maybe not that bad, but you get the idea. No matter, she knew where every bit was.
So I told her my sad tale, and that I was looking for a printer that was simple, clunky, and would last, also allowing me to avoid the dreaded “driver updates”. She gestured at three HP
920’s that she had refurbed, and priced most reasonably. Sold.
That printer was a trooper. It lived out in our garage through summer heat and winter humidity for years. Now and again conditions would cause it to gag on a sheet of paper, and it would literally grind to a halt. Pop the back cover, pull out the mangled paper, re-send the print job, done. One time there was actually a small wisp of smoke that came out the top. When I later told Sue, she chuckled and said, “Yeah, that ink is conductive”. Despite all, that printer never broke and never quit.
Don’t know if you’ve come across Rick Dyer yet, he seems to be doing banging business in Mexico w/ his vws. He sells rebuilt (w/ new suspensions, motors, a/c, etc) Beetles for only $15K. He ships em, meets you at the border, or you can drive em home from his shop. Seems pretty legit.
Fecesbook: https://x.com/thecarguy41
TicToc: https://www.tiktok.com/@officialrickthecarguy
https://www.mexvw.com
VW Beetle.
My late father made his living as an independent insurance agent. Long since remarried, he and his second wife lived in the Oakland, CA hills, with his office a five minute drive down to Montclair. Circa 1970’s.
One of his clients owned a pizza shop, a municipality or so to the south. They delivered, often into some sketchy neighborhoods. Their delivery fleet was nearly a dozen beat up, stripped down, but mechanically sound VW Beetles. Mostly running, a few to cannibalize for parts. They employed a part time mechanic to maintain the fleet. Business name spray painted on the doors with a stencil. The cash boxes were locked and welded to the floor, with only a slot for insertion. Should any attempted hold up occur, drivers were instructed to just bail and leave everything behind.
Simply and works versus complicated and breaks down. As my wife says about features on new cars, it’s just another thing to break and piss you off. Ok, not exactly her words.
In the last 20 years the only time we have replaced a printer is because the new printer with cartridges is cheaper than just the ink cartridges for the old printer.
We had an inkjet that was always having problems (don’t remember the brand; this was 25+ years ago), but I still have the Brother HL-2140 laser printer that I bought when I was in college, so about 20 years ago. It’s “just” a black-and-white printer, so no color for me, but the thing has been freaking bulletproof; all I need to do is replace the toner cartridge every now and again. And it’s wired, not wifi equipped, so no latent network vulnerability.
I dread the day when its drivers are no longer compatible with my computer’s OS.